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Sunday, 4 December 2011

THE NIGHT COMES EARLY these days, leaning up against our old rattly windowpanes, which ooze condensation and owlsong from four o'clock on. The long evenings afford us time to do Things Indoors by the fire, or at our dark desks. In the picture above, you might just be able to make out the image emerging on the paper below the lamp - but only in the reflection in the window.

It's a new winter painting - a ritual I've kept for some years now - to make a new snowy painting at this dark end of the year. No other time of year seems to call me to paint it so regularly, and these winter paintings always end up on my Christmas cards when I send them.

This year I decided (at long last) to make Winter Cards to sell, which meant completing this snowy painting early so that the cards could be designed and ordered in time for fairs and for you to buy to send...

Which meant that I couldn't labour over a detailed creation for weeks on end, and since I've been trying to force a freer looseness in my work of late to combat my finickity temperament, I made this a watercolour of quick light sketchy strokes, and tried to draw with the paintbrush in splodges rather than with hair-thin lines. I deliberately used a paintbrush slightly too big and determined to finish this in two days.

So here follows the progress of this work in pictures....

The image - a kind of gathering of nomadic folk, stopping to set up camp and collect firewood amongst the trees in the snow - I drew quickly, without worrying it too much, and without "finishing" the figures at the pencil stage which I am prone to doing:

Then I splurged on some sky, and put colour on clothing, not worrying if the paint ran over the edges, or colours mixed in unintended spots...

My accuracy with the too-big paintbrush was a little haphazard around the trees and I intentionally left watermarks where wet and dry paint met. I put on loose washes over the faces and left a space for the firesmoke too...

Gradually, each little figure was put in, suggested rather than drawn...

All of the painting came straight from my imagination, drawn and painted without reference to anything, except my inner snowy, firelit world.

Some of the scenes were very small...

And then I began to add other details around the figures - small blueish brown splodges for snow-footprints all around the encampment, and twigs in hands and on backs...

Finally, when all the paint was painted and dry, I coaxed the important bits out with a pencil, sending back the darks and tucking in the edges...

Though I decided in the end to leave the trees and their edges with the sky alone - just rough seagreen watercolour, not heeding its proper boundaries...

The tribe, whoever they are, gather wood for the fire in the midst of cold white winter to warm the stew in the pot, and to warm the babe in arms, just visible inside the bender. I didn't know this was going to be a nativity painting to begin with, but it has become somehow an alternative to the story we all know, yet really the same: where we all bring gifts to the child of light in the dark days of winter. The gift in this case is the gift of firewood, which in a life on the move, mostly lived under the sky, is the most important gift of all: warmth.

And so to Winter Cards....

I've been busy selling at Advent Fairs and setting up my little December exhibition in the bustling Courtyard Wholefood Shop and Cafe in Chagford, where my cards are for sale next to the cakes. I'll write about this soon, but meanwhile... here are the cards, a selection of eight of my wintry paintings from the past few years, packaged all together, or as single cards and packs of four.

They are printed on lovely heavy white card stock, with a very subtle matt sheen and come with recycled brown envelopes. The eight designs included are:

The cards are all wrapped up and sitting in the shop waiting to be posted out to you. I hope you like them. If you live overseas and would like to send these on before Christmas, you might be wise to order them soon before the postal services get too hectic.

Days are getting chillier here on the edge of the moor, and the first noticeable frost crept into the fields around our house on the first day of December. Macha has taken the warmest spot on the rug by the fire, and we busy on, readying ourselves for dark lamplit evenings, mulled-wine-stitched musical gatherings, and gathering plenty of firewood to warm the Winter Child.

***POSTSCRIPT***

Also, I have a giclée print of Baba Yaga up in an auction which is running til December 18th in aid of our dear Terri Windling who has struggled financially lately due to a combination of health and legal difficulties. Her worldwide circle of friends and fans have gathered an enormous amount of creativity and support and this auction is full to bursting - a veritable Goblin Marketful of delights. Please go and support it in any way you can - either by bidding or offering or word-spreading. Terri has inspired and helped so many of us, she deserves this support.

Here's the link to the main auction page where you can browse the wonders on offer.

Tom has one of his most beautiful blood red and ember yellow harlequin masks in the auction too - here.

I have just loved watching the layers and layers of colour build on your painting. It is a privilege to share the process and watch the magic unfold. I love the Breughel-esque subject and the hearth and home community of the finished piece. Thank you for the window into your lovely warming home.Warmest winter regardsCharlotte

I have run out of superlatives for your work Rima and echo the opinions of the previous two comments. Your 'alternative' Christmas cards are so special and I envy the people who will be receiving one of them.

Did Wayfarers Nativity take you only 2 days to create? It is wonderful, I love it. How you paint such tiny scenes within a painting I do not know! I love the boots on the person in red, I would love a pair of those. And I also envy the people who receive your cards.Stay warm Rima.

These are so lovely and remind me of a time in my life where the only heat to be had was from a woodstove. We gathered twigs and larger branches, made them small with an ax (and, truth to tell, a chainsaw) and slept near the stove on the colder nights. The cat couldn't be moved from a hassock that had been placed in front of the stove for seating and we humans ended up on the floor.

To this day, when I see discarded wood, I have to remind myself that I don't need it to keep warm. At least not at the moment.

Thank you, also, for showing the progress of the painting. I paint too and love to watch someone else's process.

Dear wonderful creatrix of the spirit, the pen and brush--as always, I am brimming with admiration and elation at the work you produce. I sent an email just now to inquire about a purchase. Much warmth. Ms.

Rima, What a style you have, it is so marvelously unique. I just ordered your cards, but I am going to be quite selfish and keep them all to myself. It is a nice way to have some of your artwork in a compact package.

Such a lovely painted scene... and I really enjoyed seeing your process, stage by stage... my favourite little scene is the cooking fire outside the bender and I really like the loose spontaneous way you have painted it.I do love your palette too, all those lovely umbers and ochres and dark earthy tones of red and brown. Those colours have such timelessness and rootedness... :)

Rima, as a fellow artist, I really enjoyed seeing you build this painting bit by bit. I've done paintings using ink from an octopus by building it up slowly with a light wash for the sketch and adding detail bit by bit until the last part done with pure undiluted octopus ink. May I ask, what brand of watercolors do you use? I just got some M. Graham watercolors but haven't begun to use them yet. Your friend across the world in Oregon, USA... Teresa

How lovely, Rima! What beautiful soft colours you have used and how delicately you have treated the faces of your wayfarers. Your collection of winter cards is a real treat for the eyes and the heart. And your photos of your warm home with all the cards waiting to go out to their lucky new owners gives me a marvelous feeling of anticipation! Lots of love to you, as always xxx

Rima,Wayfarer's Nativity is perfect - what a great scene. I am stooped picking up logs and sticks that way quite often these days ;)

I would love a print after Christmas sometime!

I've been working on a business -- wooden things! There'll be buttons and book ends and earrings and all sorts of who-knows-what (also wooden canvases for painting on! if you have any advice as to what makes a good wooden canvas and what doesn't - do send it my way!)

I'm so glad I stopped by...it has been a while. I was so warmed by your winter Nativity painting. It reminds me of a Canadian book called Northern Nativity by painter William Kurelek. I wish I could order your cards...maybe next year. All the best of the season to you and yours, Rima.

I find it very confusing to know how to buy these cards --I don't use etsy or paypal -- I want to use a debit card to buy them and none of the links in your post seem to go to a place where the price is listed and I can just buy them and have them delivered quickly. ????

I'm shutting the shop today (December 19th)... and will reopen it in the new year.

Teresa - I use Windsor & Newton watercolours :)

Greenconsciousness - sorry you found it confusing to buy from my shop...You need to sign up to etsy to shop from it, but you don't need a paypal account to check out with paypal. The link I put in the post to the cards section of the shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/thehermitage?section_id=10805254) shows you clearly which cards I have left and their prices. Etsy is really very easy to use. If you read this before I make my last trip to the post office this afternoon, I hope you have luck.

Otherwise, I'll have more Winter cards available in the new year when I reopen... since Christmas need not be the end of sending winter greetings :)

About Me

Rima Staines is an artist using paint, wood, word, music, animation, clock-making, puppetry & story to attempt to build a gate through the hedge that grows along the boundary between this world & that. Her gate-building has been a lifelong pursuit, & she hopes to have perhaps propped aside even one spiked loop of bramble (leaving a chink just big enough for a mud-kneeling, trusting eye to glimpse the beauty there beyond), before she goes through herself.

Always stubborn about living the things that make her heart sing, Rima lives with her partner Tom and their young son in Hedgespoken - an offgrid home and travelling theatre built on a vintage Bedford RL truck.

Rima’s inspirations include the world & language of folktale; faces of people who pass her on the street; folk music & art of Old Europe & beyond; peasant & nomadic living; magics of every feather; wilderness & plant-lore; the margins of thought, experience, community & spirituality; & the beauty in otherness.

Crumbs fall from Rima’s threadbare coat pockets as she travels, & can be found collected here, where you may join the caravan.